59. Thou dost faint, thou dost fail, thou scribe; cried the desolate Voice; but I have filled thee with a wine whose savour thou knowest not.60. It shall avail to make drunken the people of the old gray sphere that rolls in the infinite Far-off; they shall lap the wine as dogs that lap the blood of a beautiful courtesan pierced through by the Spear of a swift rider through the city.

"To advance—that means Work. Patient, exhausting, thankless, often bewildering Work. Dear sister, if you would but Work! Work blindly, foolishly, misguidedly, it doesn’t matter in the end: Work in itself has absolute virtue." -Magick Without Tears

There is a kind of 'pearls before swine' attitude here. The desolate Voice recalls Choronzon—the throne of desolation, or something like that. The word 'Voice' is capitalized, which, in the context of the abyss, suggests the act of talking, making noise, and otherwise pontificating BS. It doesn't understand what is happening to the scribe, or Ruach, so it asserts or judges there to be a problem.

But speaking of the scribe, considering we are still talking about the scribe in later part of the sentence, it (scribe) cannot really appreciate the quality of the energy/life/wine/influence being poured into it—not known or unknowable being the same as knowest not. Specifically, it cannot taste it, the word being savour—might as well be two-buck-chuck, or Ripple, or Night Train!

60. It shall avail to make drunken the people of the old gray sphere that rolls in the infinite Far-off; they shall lap the wine as dogs that lap the blood of a beautiful courtesan pierced through by the Spear of a swift rider through the city.

The image of the old gray sphere takes me in two directions. The ancient of days would, could be Chokmah, whose Briahtic color is gray. The question is raised then: who is considered to be of the old gray sphere, only someone with the grade of Magus, or...? The other direction is not to consider the Qabalah, and simply read the sentiment: old as tired, the color of which is dull, depressed gray, or of the folk that not know me as yet...

The second part is a Magister Templi image. The knight is the knight of the court cards attributed to Chokmah, and Atziluth. The spilling or surrendering of ones blood is a restatement of the symbolism of collecting every drop of blood into the cup of Babalon.

It seems the active dominant spirit in this equation is 'thrilling' the being of the devoted passive soul, and the sacrifice, sexual and violent, is a wine, a source of ecstasy for others—either the saints, or the people down below...

The image of it being lapped up by dogs tends to heighten the toggle nature of my interpretation. It can be an image of something being profaned. At the same time it makes us drunk, and this is a religious, or sacred act. Similarly, it is easy for me identify myself with the dogs, lap up the words, and be drunk thereof...

Love and Will

"I remember seeing Atlas looking at a world whose hoops and rings had been broken by Copernicus, where Tycho Brahe placed his back beneath the globe, and a shouting Ptolemy tried to support the round lump, to stop it from falling into the void. In the mean time Copernicus was breaking many crystal spheres that were placed around the globe and was stamping out the little lights that flickered in the crystal jars." (de Hooghe, Hieroglyphica, Amsterdam, 1744)

It shall avail to make drunken the people of the old gray sphere that rolls in the infinite Far-off ...

The word "drunken" is apposite for me. With literal wine, I'm apt to say, "I'll just have one glass, no more. I shouldn't drink too much" -- and before you know it, I've finished two bottles and am topping it off with a beer. In the same way, I can pick up one of the Holy Books or the Vision and the Voice, and the intoxication is overwhelming. Once I start, it's hard to stop -- for better or worse, I can't say. The savor is certainly indescribable, too. Truly, there is no wine like this wine.

-- Robert W

"Friends in the Dharma, be satisfied with your own heads. Do not put any false heads above your own. Then, minute after minute, watch your step closely." -- Nyogen Senzaki

The scribe just can't hang. It got too drunk, blacked out and passed out. I get the sense that it was striving to the point of utter exhaustion. The desolate Voice seeming to come from a place the scribe would never have reached. But this seems like it was necessary for what's happening in the next line.

60. It shall avail to make drunken the people of the old gray sphere that rolls in the infinite Far-off; they shall lap the wine as dogs that lap the blood of a beautiful courtesan pierced through by the Spear of a swift rider through the city.

I think the old gray sphere is definitely a reference to Chokmah. I'm strugglin a bit wit the rest.

"To advance—that means Work. Patient, exhausting, thankless, often bewildering Work. Dear sister, if you would but Work! Work blindly, foolishly, misguidedly, it doesn’t matter in the end: Work in itself has absolute virtue." -Magick Without Tears

The old grey sphere, I think, refers to the dull, flat, boring, unawakened world in which most people live. It's the black and white farm before hitting the Technicolor of Oz.

Wine is ecstasy.

The Scribe, or Ruach, can't sustain the connection long, but at least had the consolation prize of a nice ecstatic buzz just for playing. He is advised to push ecstasy on the masses, as an effort to move them a bit onto the color wheel.

The scribe is the human personality, the Ruach level of the recipient. The desolate Voice (de- + sōlus: that which comes from the space that is solitary, alone, void of all else) is the Voice in the Silence, the Holy Guardian Angel. Here, near the end of this chapter of Fire, the personality is tiring, falling back from its conscious illumination. Yet the Angel reminds that the ripened time-ripened (i.e., aged) intoxicant has already been planted with the aspirant's soul even when he falls back from it consciously.

This is extremely familiar, and comforting in what otherwise might be an hour of self-recrimination. One thing that differs the Knowledge & Conversation from earlier stages of conscious interpenetration of some aspect of the Angel into the mortal psyche is that the link has been made. It is permanent. The Angel is present and the union is secured. Even when the Adept is sent forth "upon the earth to do his pleasure among the living," the Angel is there, even when the Adept is unmindful, even when no one seems there.

60. It shall avail to make drunken the people of the old gray sphere that rolls in the infinite Far-off; they shall lap the wine as dogs that lap the blood of a beautiful courtesan pierced through by the Spear of a swift rider through the city.

The marks of Adepthood are evident even in such an "off" day in such an "off" person. They contagiously spread, they give a "contact high" to people around the Adept, the spill-over. It is a reminder that the Adept no longer has the leisure to unmindfully interact with others because the Adept is the Philosopher's Stone, and his or her contact with another, by default, sets in motion a process of transmutation. This is not always a gift, and may be a cruelty to those who have not requested it.